


the last witness before the wave hits

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort No Hurt, Communication, Cuddling & Snuggling, Jon is Catte, M/M, Scottish Honeymoon, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), These boys need therapy, also i can have little a jonelias feelings in my jonmartin, as a treat, but this is the closest they'll get, i begged for them to have five minutes together before the end of the world, i can't believe they got this lucky, reassurance, working through things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24479986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: The cottage is simple but dry, the roof sound and the door at the very least well-fitting enough that the wind and rain don't follow them in. It's freezing, though, and when Jon realizes that the only heat on offer is whatever they might be able to coax out of the fireplace, he thinks for a moment that he might actually cry.//Jon and Martin finally have time to talk.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 35
Kudos: 326





	the last witness before the wave hits

ARCHIVIST  
I’m, I’m sorry, Martin. We haven’t… I know we haven’t talked much since... Sasha and everything.

MARTIN  
Well, I mean it’s not too late, y;know. Unless the world ends.  
[MARTIN LAUGHS NERVOUSLY]

ARCHIVIST  
Yeah.

[CLICK]

* * *

Martin wakes to the sound of Jon's voice, low and quiet. He's talking to someone on his mobile, sat up in bed but with his hip leaning against Martin's shoulder, still dressed in boxers and one of Martin's old t-shirts. If not for that contact Martin would have probably woken up sooner, but apparently Jon's voice is still enough to drag him out of whatever unconscious state of mind he might be trapped in. It's a lovely thought, and Martin snuggles closer with a happy hum. Without turning around, Jon strokes his free hand through Martin's hair, and it's possible that he falls asleep again.

If he does it must not be for long, because Jon is still sitting on the bed looking fondly down at him when he blinks open his eyes. Martin's heart flips over painfully at the soft look on his face. "Who's'at?" he mumbles against Jon's hip, anything to distract from the unbearable feeling of being loved.

"Basira," Jon says, still as quiet as though he's trying to avoid waking someone. "She's–she's all right, but everything else is a mess." He sighs. "Daisy's missing. So's Elias." Martin makes a disgusted noise at the mention of Elias's name, and Jon's fingers curl fondly at the back of his neck. "Everyone else–well. Given my...previous involvement in a murder investigation at the Institute, she thinks it would be a good idea if I were to make myself scarce for a while."

Martin turns his head to blink up at him more seriously. "Good thing we didn't go to yours, then," he says. "Does she have any suggestions?"

Jon shifts to lie back down at Martin's side; it's clearly not urgent, then. Which is good, because Martin hasn't been this warm in months, and it's much too good to abandon now. He wraps an arm around Jon's waist and pulls him close, and Jon comes easily. "Apparently Daisy has a safehouse in Scotland. Basira's convinced she's got some kind of key drop or something, I told her she could just bring them here."

"Sounds like Basira," Martin grumbles, but he's too sleepy to argue about it. "Scotland's nice," he says instead.

Jon makes a noncommittal noise. "Have you been?" he asks carefully, as if he couldn't just Know if he wanted to. It's sweet.

"No, but I've seen, y'know, films and things." He curls a little closer around Jon, and Jon sighs and rests his forehead against Martin's shoulder. If it were anyone else Martin would be concerned it was exasperation, but it's so clearly not that he can't find it in himself to worry. "It's pretty up there. And they've got those good cows."

"Good cows?" Jon's voice turns up in delight, and it's probably not about the cows.

"You know," Martin says defensively, and he'd gesture demonstrably if it didn't mean taking his arms from around Jon. "The–the fluffy ones, with the ears and the–"

"Right," Jon says, still delighted; Martin can feel his smile against his shoulder. "I just think all the cows in England are feeling a little slighted."

"I'm sure they're also very good cows," Martin says primly. "They're just not _fluffy_." Jon starts to laugh, clutching helplessly at Martin's back, and Martin feels that reassuring warmth seep a little deeper into his bones.

* * *

It probably is nice. Jon can't tell through all the rain. He'd forgotten that summer ended that much sooner the further north you got, and it seems that Daisy was determined to get as far away from civilization as possible when she needed to go to ground.

On the other hand, no one could possibly find them in this mess, so at least he can be sure they haven't been followed.

The cottage is simple but dry, the roof sound and the door at the very least well-fitting enough that the wind and rain don't follow them in. It's freezing, though, and when Jon realizes that the only heat on offer is whatever they might be able to coax out of the fireplace, he thinks for a moment that he might actually cry.

Martin had slept through most of the two days' journey it took them to get here, something he clearly desperately needed and which Jon couldn't begrudge, but now given a clear task to follow through he suddenly seems full of energy. He's the one who finds the cache of firewood tucked into a kitchen cupboard (the others are full of tins of soup, vegetables, and pears and peaches; Martin gives these last a dry look and shuts the cupboard door a little too hard), and he's the one who manages to get a spark to catch on one of the logs. He grins up at Jon from where he's sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the hearth, and it isn't the tiny fire that warms Jon's skin.

He plunks down next to Martin, ignoring the cold floor, and Martin wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. Jon settles against him with a happy sigh. Even if the fire takes forever to warm them up, this will be good enough, he thinks.

He's half asleep, leaning heavy into Martin's warm bulk, when Martin nuzzles into his hair and says, "Jon?"

"Yeah," he says tiredly, shifting to start to sit up. "We should probably find a–there's got to be a cot or something–"

Martin tightens his arm, though, and keeps him where he was. "No, I–well yeah, I'm not gonna sleep here, but that's not what." He stops, takes a deep breath. And then another.

"Okay," Jon says, after a long pause. He doesn't have any room to complain; they've both become slightly terrible at finishing sentences. There are too many things to say, perhaps, and not enough words. He leans into Martin's embrace anyway, hoping that will help to express something.

"I didn't mean what I said," Martin says hurriedly, a little too loud. He winces at his own volume, brings it back down. "In the Lonely. I mean, I did mean it, I just wasn't–"

Jon chews on his lip. There were a few things Martin said in the Lonely, but only one that he's thought about every day since then, turning over and over in his mind looking for some nuance he's missed, and he thinks if he asks about it right now his voice will break on the question.

Martin shifts a little, turns so he can wrap both his arms around Jon and bury his face in his hair again. "I still love you," he says. "That's what I meant. When I said I–I couldn't feel anything in there and I didn't know–" He swallows hard and whispers, "I still love you. I do."

Jon thinks about everything he's wanted to say ever since that moment, how he’s thought a hundred times that he should tell Martin that it was all right if he didn’t love him anymore, but he could never bring himself to do it. How he had decided to believe in it, in the months where Martin was barely more than a shadow in the corner of his eye. How he'd been so afraid that he had waited too long, taken too long to figure it out, and even if Martin still loved him it was too late for it to matter. But he can't make any of it coherent, and he's much too tired to try, so Jon clings back hiding the prick of tears in his eyes in Martin's shirt, already damp with rain. "I know," he says, as soothing as he can. "I know."

* * *

Martin had expected anything that could be described as "Daisy's safehouse" to be spartan to the point of deprivation, but it turns out to have a couple of decent pieces of furniture. The bed, unfortunately, isn't one of them, but there's an overstuffed sofa in the main room that has to be the most blissfully comfortable thing he's ever experienced. It's a little too short to fall asleep on (at least for him; Jon curls up like a cat when he naps, which is so adorable Martin doesn't dare say anything for fear he'll become self-conscious and _stop_ ) but with nowhere to go and nothing to do they wind up spending the bulk of their time there, particularly when the wind is blowing hard and the chill seeps in through the windows.

When they're settled down on the sofa and thoroughly ensconced in blankets, no possible gap left for cold to seep through save for one less-securely tucked corner from which Martin can reach out for tea, Jon presses himself into Martin's side like he's trying to climb under his skin. Which is a cliche, Martin tells himself sternly, not a good poetic image, except for the part where he actually has a very vivid mental image of what climbing into someone else's skin might look like, and okay maybe it is a good image, but not for the kind of poetry he's thinking about right now.

Well, maybe. There was that statement about the Frenchman with the bug wife... He files it away for later consideration. Jon tucks his nose into Martin's neck, freezing cold just above the line of his jumper, and Martin can't help but laugh, a small, incredulous noise.

"What is it?" Jon mumbles, maybe a little offended at being laughed at but also clearly not prepared to move.

"Nothing, it's just." Martin tightens his arm around him briefly and Jon sighs, contented. "I used to daydream about this you know. Nothing–well, okay, more often than anything racy, really. Just being able to hold you when you looked so tired you could barely stand up, or curl up on the couch at the end of a long day." Martin grins. "And then I'd tell myself, don't be ridiculous, even if through some miracle you did date Jonathan Sims, you can't imagine he'd be a cuddler, would you?"

Jon snorts, acknowledging this assessment, and somehow manages to get even closer. "I'm sorry to disappoint you," he says in a sarcastic tone that Martin hasn't heard in years, and it startles a proper laugh out of him.

(When Martin decides that they both require a cup of tea to fight off the evening chill and Jon refuses to untangle himself, Martin manages to get one arm around Jon’s back and the other around his legs without him noticing, and lifts him bodily when he stands up. Jon squawks indignantly, but when Martin sets him back down on the sofa, pleased with his escape strategy, Jon is blushing furiously and won’t meet his eyes. Martin files that one away for later.)

* * *

It's very empty up here. Jon hadn't realized how much he would miss the background hum of London until it was gone, but out here there's nothing but the two of them and the sky and the echoing hills. He tries not to look outside too much.

Which is easy enough, when what's inside is so comforting. They've only been there a week (a week already? It feels like they left London just this morning, and it feels like they've been here forever) but the cottage already has a lived-in feeling: tea mugs on the counter, a spare jumper thrown over the back of the sofa. It's...much nicer than it has any right to be. But then again, Jon supposes, it's been a very long time since he's lived anywhere that feels like home.

He's settled in with a book of crossword puzzles from Daisy's milk crate bookshelves, frowning at a clue that is definitely referring to a politician from at least twenty years ago who he's never heard of, when Martin brushes fingers against his shoulder to catch his attention and says, "I'm going for a walk."

"Oh!" Jon re-focuses on his surroundings with an effort. "Give me five minutes, I'll come with you."

Martin smiles at him, but it's more nervous than affectionate. "I, um. I actually thought I'd go by myself?" He's fidgeting with the hem of his jacket, twisting it back and forth.

"Oh," Jon says again, studying his face as if that had any hope of offering him insight. "Are–are you sure?" he asks finally, lamely. He's aware he sounds far more disappointed than he ought to.

"Yeah," Martin says with a sigh, and he smiles more sincerely, which makes it worth it. "I just...need a little fresh air." _A little space_ , he doesn't say, and Jon fights down a sudden wave of guilt that Martin's been stuck with him of all people. Martin sees it, of course, and he hurries on. "I just. I got used to not having someone listening to me all the time, I guess. I feel a little self-conscious?"

"Of course." Of course he does; not yet a week away from the Institute and Jon feels a weight off his shoulders, and it's more than one thing, of course, but it's also the knowledge that they're no longer being watched all the time. "Be careful," he says, pointlessly, and as he heads out the door Martin flashes him a grin that makes his stomach turn over in the best kind of way.

But the crossword has lost its appeal, somehow, and Jon rummages uselessly through the tiny bookshelf for a few minutes before he gives up and does the washing up. There's not much, so he also scrubs down the utilitarian sink that still carries a few indefinable stains, and then he might as well tackle the floor. There were no visible stains on the rough wooden boards, but the wash water is an unsettling shade of pink by the time he's done, so clearly it wasn't time wasted.

There isn't anything left to do, after that. The cottage is very small, after all, no matter how empty it manages to feel. "You'd think after everything that I could manage two hours on my own," he says into the quiet of the room, not even the hum of a tape recorder to keep him company. Does he really miss the tape recorders? "Typical," he mutters to himself, collapsing back onto the sofa, muscles tired but mind still racing.

Jon tries to decide if he's hungry. Not hungry, lunch wasn't so long ago, but _hungry_. Is boredom antithetical to the Beholding? Or is he just falling into bad habits again, reaching out for the nearest thing that might feel good regardless of the consequences? He's fairly certain he isn't hungry, for food or anything else, but now he's thinking about it and he can't seem to stop. Almost unconsciously, he tugs the abandoned jumper – one of Martin's, of course – over his head and wraps himself in it almost like a blanket.

He's still there when Martin returns, letting the smell of heather and impending rain through the door along with him. Jon squeezes his eyes shut. He's absolutely not fit to talk to anyone right now, never mind Martin, who doesn't deserve his bad mood. He's borne the brunt of enough of them over the years.

Martin sits down on the couch behind him and puts his arms around him, tugging him back to rest against his broad chest, and Jon slumps boneless against him but he doesn't otherwise react. Martin kisses the top of his head very gently. After a moment, he says, "I'm sure Basira will find something she can send up sooner or later."

The disdainful sound Jon makes is harsh enough that Martin tenses up briefly, and he regrets it immediately. "I don't need them," he says by way of explanation. "I don't need them but I can't stop _thinking_ about them, and what does that say about me?"

"That someone tricked you into getting addicted to spooky stories?" Martin says lightly, and Jon hunches a little further into himself. Martin squeezes him tighter, not allowing it, and adds, "There was no way you could have known. You were just–trying to understand, that's all."

"But I didn't have to," Jon says bitterly, all the old emotions rushing back again as if they'd never left, never been replaced by something brighter and purer and _better_. "Not then. I could have walked away. And then Tim would still be alive, and Sasha, and–"

Martin cuts him off. "You were trying to help. Even by the time you knew what was happening, you couldn't just stand by and let them destroy the world."

He can't choke back the laugh that rips its way out of him. "But that's the thing, isn't it. It wouldn't have–it _couldn't_ have. Gertrude had already figured that out. What we did, what we _tried_ to do, it didn't mean _anything._ "

"You wanted to help," Martin says again, and presses a fierce kiss to Jon's hair. Tears prick at Jon's eyes, out of nowhere. "You knew it might not work, and then it would have been for nothing anyway, but you still went. To _help_. I love you for that." He squeezes a little tighter, and Jon lets himself relax into the soft, safe confines of his embrace. "It doesn't matter what Elias was doing, you were being selfless and brave and I love you."

_Elias._ Jon's been trying so hard not to think of him at all, and he's done an excellent job so far really, but that doesn't stop the rush of something stopping his throat that he thinks might be grief. "Jonah," he corrects softly. "He never was Elias, not really."

But it helps, somehow, to think of the man he'd admired, who'd hired him and promoted him and told him he showed such promise, as dead and gone instead of a lie he'd been foolish enough to believe. Elias had been a mentor to him, the kind he'd always longed for and never really managed to find, and he'd been so _damned_ encouraging about things that, it turned out, he'd never cared about at all.

"I wanted so badly for him to be proud of me," he whispers, and the tears that have been threatening all afternoon finally begin to fall.

Martin nuzzles into his hair and pulls him close. "I'm proud of you," he murmurs softly. "I'm so proud of you." Jon curls his fingers around Martin's wrists and holds on tight.

* * *

Martin had worried that it would be awkward, sharing a bed that was never really meant for two, but the first morning he'd woken up with Jon wrapped around him: arms snug around his ribcage, feet tucked between Martin's knees, his face pressed into Martin's neck. Jon hadn't even been embarrassed when he woke up, just wriggled as if it were possible to snuggle closer and mumbled something about not having to go to work.

It still feels like a small miracle whenever Jon touches him, no matter that he does it all the time now. This afternoon they're pressed together entirely comfortably in the narrow bed, Jon half draped over Martin's chest, and Martin is running his fingers through Jon's hair (so much more grey than it had been as he laid in his hospital bed–but Martin isn't going to think about that) when a thought occurs to him.

"I haven't seen any tape recorders around since we got here," he says, surprised.

Jon makes a muffled noise into his chest. "Good riddance," he says clearly, then nuzzles back in.

Martin doesn't bother trying to repress his smile. His face hurts, he's been smiling so much these past weeks, which is horrible when he thinks about how they left the Institute and everything Jon's told him about Jonah Magnus and Daisy and–and yet he's so happy. He's never been so happy. He never thought he could be this happy.

"I thought you didn't want to be a mystery," he teases, stroking gently around the back of Jon's skull to show he doesn't really mean it. "As far as the tapes are concerned, we might never have made it out of the Lonely."

Jon tenses a little at the mention of it and Martin thinks he's made a mistake, but then he pushes himself up so he can lean on one elbow and look Martin in the face. He's got that look on his face, the terribly serious one that's still so soft and open and sincere, the one that makes Martin's heart melt into a puddle every time Jon turns it on him.

"The tapes can go to hell," Jon says firmly. "I don't know who's listening to them, if it's–Jonah or Annabelle or some horrible monstrous thing beyond human comprehension. They don't get to have this." He leans down, almost overbalancing, and presses a clumsy kiss to Martin's lips. "It's none of their business," he adds, into their shared breath.

He almost wants to laugh, but instead he kisses Jon again, holding him close. It's still too good to be true, though he tries to push that thought and the associated fear–that this can't possibly last–as far from the two of them and their safe, warm cocoon as he can. When the kiss ends Jon curls back up on Martin's chest, head tucked under his chin. "I suppose there's something romantic about just...disappearing out of the middle of a story about monsters and the end of the world." Then he second-guesses himself. "Unless that's too Lonely."

Jon hums, breath warm against Martin's skin. "Not at all," he says. "This doesn't belong in a statement. This is–this is ours."

_Ours._ It sends a warm thrill through him. "Yeah," Martin says through the lump in his throat. "Yeah." And although it's not yet half past four, they fall asleep there, wanting for nothing.


End file.
